Divide and Conquer: Change is an Obstacle That Must be Owned

Over the many thousands of years of human history, competing armies fought over land. This is still going on today, and it is both inspirational and frighteningly real. Businesses can still capture some of the ideology of conquering a land by applying it to their daily practice. The land, in this case, is the omnipresent force of change. Change is always there. It cannot be removed from the equation. A business has three options to deal with it.

Ignore it, and roll when the change comes to them
React to change
Create change before it creates itself

Conquering a land involves breaking the strategy into manageable chunks. An army leader (in this example, a business executive) does not say to the army (staff) that the goal today is to conquer this land. The goal is to find new food. The goal is to move 35 miles. The overarching accomplishment is domination over land or a city. But, the efforts are broken down and divided into scenes that can be grasped both physically and emotionally.



Driving change begins with a leader that understands the subtle differences between creating change and managing goals. An executive must apply an end user understanding of the goal and purpose. The steps are done in sections, and there is time to rest and to adapt to each change. In war, there is little time for this. In business, time must be made.

Many leaders make the precarious mistake of applying a change, nodding to everyone, and following it up with more change. Management must establish a flow and pacing that the staff members can adapt to. It is best to change management strategy by looking at how the smaller steps are adapted to. The change is dictated and enforced by the executive leader. But, it is not all up to the leader. He or she (and the team) must provide time for adaptation. The change management consulting firms practice detailed schedules for when to deploy the change, and when to pull the reigns back and allow time for adaptation. That is the core difference between success and failure in creating efficient business change.